Cristiano Ronaldo and Kevin De Bruyne are examples for Mohamed Salah in contract talks, according to reports. Liverpool are in a tough spot.
This comes from the Mirror. They claim that the agent of Mohamed Salah is using Cristiano Ronaldo and Kevin De Bruyne as examples in contract talks.
The two are the highest-paid players in the Premier League. Ronaldo, for instance, earns £500k per week at Manchester United. De Bruyne agreed a new contract with Manchester City last year for around £400k per week. They’re massive numbers and Liverpool have never been near them before.
Salah is ‘refusing to budge’ on these figures, believing he should be paid as one of the absolute best players in the Premier League.
Mohamed Salah has tough contract demands
“I want to stay, but it’s not in my hands. It’s in their hands,” Salah recently told GQ. “They know what I want. I’m not asking for crazy stuff.”
So this is apparently what he means by ‘not crazy stuff’. And on the face of it, he’s right. Salah is probably the best player in the world right now and it is fair that his wages reflect that.
But you can’t take those Ronaldo and De Bruyne numbers in isolation – there’s a lot of noise around them.
Take Ronaldo’s £500k. That’s an obscene number as Ronaldo is not one of the best players in the league. United are paying a premium based on his name, presumably expecting the Ronaldo ‘brand’ to pay for a chunk itself. Salah is one of the world’s most famous players but he’s simply not at Ronaldo’s level when it comes to branding.
But those wages really shouldn’t be an example for anyone but Lionel Messi. They’re not based on what he’s delivering now and we can’t imagine Liverpool pay attention to them.
De Bruyne’s are more interesting. The Belgian is the only other Premier League star who can make a case to being its best. He’s a sensational player and Salah’s direct rival in a lot of ways.
And so it makes sense that the Egyptian would point to De Bruyne as an example. Again, though, it’s not a fair comparison.
Manchester City have a near-bottomless pit of money that Liverpool simply don’t. Paying their star £400k-a-week wages is actually fairly comfortable when they’re used to dropping £40m+ on a fullback every summer.
Liverpool don’t have that kind of money. They won’t unless they come into City or Paris Saint-Germain money – it’s unfortunately as simple as that. So while Salah can absolutely point to those figures as an example, Liverpool can’t agree to them as City have.
That’s not to say they couldn’t make it work – with some movement, we’re sure they could – but it’s not straightforward. This will be a difficult few months, then, as we can’t see Salah changing his stance.
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